The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is a satellite launch system which was developed and operated by the ISRO. It is an expendable launch vehicle, which means it is used once and then destroyed or abandoned. The PSLV was developed for India to launch the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into heliosynchronous (sun-synchronous) orbits. Before the development of the PSLV, only Russia had this technology and the Indian satellites were launched from Russia. PSLC has the capability to launch satellites of small sizes into a geostationary transfer orbit or the GTO.

The PSLV was designed and built in the early years of the 90s at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre located near Thiruvananthapuram. The PSLV was used to launch Chandrayaan-1, the Mars Orbiter Mission and the Astrosat.